When is the best time to refresh your PCs?

Some organizations still adhere to an old purchasing strategy of providing lower-cost, minimally-equipped PCs for general use, and waiting until these devices fail before replacing them. But as acquisition cost only makes up a fraction of TCO for client devices, organizations may need to rethink this policy and its impact on business.
Keeping PCs for longer than three years dramatically increases support costs and security exposure. That’s because lower-cost PCs are unable to support the latest OS and application updates, increasing security risks and reducing productivity. And they rarely last their anticipated lifespans, requiring additional device purchases or more frequent refresh. So before you decide on a standard, it is important to assess the true costs of ownership, including support costs, lost employee productivity and security risk exposure.